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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Proverb a Day in May - May 19th/Chapter 19

There is an old principle that states: If God said it once, it is important; if God said it twice, you better pay special attention to it. We notice that here in this chapter:

Proverbs 19:5 A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.

Proverbs 19:9 A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.

We live in a society that does not place much value on the spoken word. You can say just about anything these days without any repercussions (unless you are a Christian speaking in public, but that is for another blog post on another day!). Yet, God holds us to every word that we utter, and has no use for those who lie, or bear false witness.

The phrase "shall not escape...shall perish" interest me. In it, there is an implied thought that the liar gets away with their lies for a moment of time, but their day of justice will come. Many times people do not consider the hurt and damage that their lies cause.

It reminds me of the story of the young boy who lied to all of his friends about how mean his mother was to him. His father found out about it and confronted him on the issue and the young boy broke down in tears, admitting what he had done. Earlier in the day, they had been working on putting in a new wooden fence post. The young son wanted to know what he could do to take back his words and make it better, so his dad told him to take a nail and nail it into the new fence post for every lie that he told. After he finishes this, his father then tells him to then take out each nail. Once he does, the son tells his father, "Look at all of those nail holes, I can't fix them and make the post look the same again?" And his father answered, "The same is true with our lies, once they go out, the damage will always be there."

Let us all take heed to Solomon's words and steer clear of lying. Remember, there is no such thing as a "little white lie" with God.